poetry, prose, and musings

Tag Archives: self image

Should I focus on my size?
My eyes or hair?
How I’m shaped like a rectangle?
Bones sturdy enough to pull a plough.
Strong, straight legs bookending knees of butter.
Two feet with ten toes and sufficient arches.
My glorious, murderer’s thumbs living in the shadow
of fingers with knuckles undamaged
despite a childhood cracking habit
that my mother swore would transform
my capable hands to gnarly claws.
According to a CT scan, all my organs rest rightly.
Nothing extra. Nothing missing. Nothing out-of-place.
My brain and spine are not so pristine. A tad lacy,
but not ostentatiously so.
In recent years, my hair and I have reached an accord.
I let the curls reign unchecked.
My skin is creamy and pink except where
slashed with scars, large and small.
I smile with my whole face.
The blue and sometimes green of my eyes
gets swallowed when I laugh.
What I like the most about myself is my shoulders.
They carry everything,
even when I’m certain they can’t.

I accepted I would transform as I age,
crave the symphony over indie
and alternative rock concerts,
that my preferences for
edgy boots or sparkly tennis shoes,
funky skirts and dangly earrings,
would abate.
The stealthy yearning to tattoo coat
my body should evaporate.

Along with my shape bleeding out,
every line softening
with the passage,
my features mothering over,
I would molt the youthful desires.

A turn to pudding,
bowls lined up neatly in the fridge,
saran-wrapped and
ready for clean spoons.
Everything easily digestible.

The reliable, hard-working,
and unfaltering,
must look and feel different
than how I floated
softly in skin still malleable.

I had failed to notice
my existing penchant for
studiousness,
unbroken employment,
thrift,
my habit of promptly paying
bills in full,
being where I said I’d be
on time and ready,
paired just as surely
with jeans as pinstriped suits,
with Neko Case as Mozart.